


Armor

by ackermom



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-27
Updated: 2017-11-27
Packaged: 2019-02-07 09:52:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12838668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ackermom/pseuds/ackermom
Summary: Sometimes Reiner forgets that it is him. Sometimes Reiner forgets his name, and he is just another face seeking justice, just another hand wrapped around his throat.





	Armor

**Author's Note:**

> [i'll let you ruin my day](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFjrwp6UA1I)

Reiner has been here before. He has been in this room, against this wall, with these fingernails pressed into his skin. He has been here so many times that his feet find their place on the floor. He has been here so many times that he has memorized the view, and it wavers in his vision now, his reflection staring back at him in the window. The curtains are drawn over all but one pane of glass, one that stands directly across from him and sends him reeling into the night. A single candle stands on the table, its long flame dancing shadows over the walls. The wax has melted and it has stained the table. But it will be blown out before long, and then Reiner will try to forget who he is. 

He has been here before, and he hates himself for it every time. He hates the way the doorknob feels in his fingers, cold, like ice, until it warms beneath his beaten skin, and then it burns, a warning, an invitation, an omen. He hates the face he sees in the window, every night, his own hollow eyes staring back at him in the glass. He hates the sound of his boots across the floor. He hates the way they look in the darkest hours of the night, when he stumbles out in silence, and he hates the sunrise, when the day casts its beams across his bedroom floor and shines against each scrape on the toe of his boots. He hates waking in the golden sunlight, burnt and alone. He hates waking at all. 

But there is an urgency to these tortures. He inflicts this pain upon himself, and he does so with an increasing rage, desire, grief. There is something driving him forward, throwing his fists at punching bags all day, bruising his knuckles on leather and chalk, and letting his wrists be pinned to the walls at night, fingernails pressing into his purple veins. There is something to be said for the pain and the punishment, and it is something he says only in his heart when he stands too close to the ocean or thinks about the last time he was kissed. The sunrise is pink over the sea, but Reiner only sees blood. 

There is something desperate about being wanted. Lust is a sin, but sins can be forgiven. 

Galliard bites his neck and Reiner is on fire, he hates him, he hates himself, he hates this world and this place and this feeling, and the only thing worth living for is the purple bruises he will wake with tomorrow morning, the fresh blood drawn from the jagged gashes down his back, and the scratches over his trembling hands that cut into him and leave nothing but wounded skin. 

He could be anyone. It does not have to be Galliard who prescribes this penance. Sometimes Reiner forgets that it is him. Sometimes Reiner forgets his name, and he is just another face seeking justice, just another hand wrapped around his throat. Sometimes he is just  _he_.

But it could not be anyone else, Reiner knows, except for Galliard. It could not be anyone else. There is no one else in this green land who could hate Reiner so much, perhaps as much as he hates himself, and yet still leave room for mercy, still hold back at the end of the night, still fall into the pillows with tears in his eyes, still decide that they will never speak of this in the daylight. It could not be anyone else except Galliard: Galliard, who has lost so much, who dreams of blood and teeth, who wakes from nightmares that are not his, who knows what Reiner has done and does not know what Reiner can ever do to atone.

Galliard is angry, but he is not cruel. Reiner sees despair in his dark eyes, but never vengeance. He is inexorably sad, and there is nothing Reiner can do for him but offer the flesh of his body as a place for misery and guilt and reconciliation. That is all his body is anyways, and it is all he knows how to do with soft skin. 


End file.
